Length determination of DNA fragments in atomic force microscope images

Abstract

A processing algorithm was developed to detect and determine the lengths of DNA fragments in atomic force microscope images. The algorithm was designed to account for varying image conditions, fragment sizes, and background contamination, while minimizing the processing time to provide a high throughput. Although a large enough sample of images has not been tested yet to determine precisely the accuracy, we estimate the accuracy to be within 2 pixels based on analysis of an ideal simulated image and an actual image.